Well, the PCH doesn't do a whole lot now, on skt1366 you have PCI-E running off the IOH with QPI. X79 doesn't need QPI to the chipset anymore because the bandwidth is unnecessary because the PCI-E controller is on the CPU. X79 doesn't do much because it doesn't have to. What about the PCH do you not like? Whatever the PCH doesn't have IVB-E/SB-E have more than enough PCI-E lanes to let you add stuff to your machine. This isn't a gimped 1155 CPU with only 20 lanes (16 usable on SB). I don't know about your machine but mine does 16x/8x/8x/8x which gives you a lot of options for expansion if you're not running 3 or 4 video cards, not to mention the 1x slots in between some of them.

I've been thoroughly satisfied with my 3820... and if you're complaining about how X79 only has 2 SATA 6Gb ports, then unless you have more than 2 SSDs, you're complaining about a non-issue and if you have the money to invest in that many SSDs, I'm willing to bet you have the money to invest in a nice controller to handle them as well. At least Intel's SATA 6Gb ports run at a full 6Gbit though.

X79 might be a glorified z68 board, but both the X79 and z68 are glorified ICHs with a couple extra PCI-E lanes just in case. If you took the PCI-E controller out of the IOH on 1366, the IOH wouldn't do a lot, so you might as well make it do what the ICH used to.

So just because X79 doesn't have everything you ever wanted does not mean that it's a bad chipset.

Well, the PCH doesn't do a whole lot now, on skt1366 you have PCI-E running off the IOH with QPI. X79 doesn't need QPI to the chipset anymore because the bandwidth is unnecessary because the PCI-E controller is on the CPU. X79 doesn't do much because it doesn't have to. What about the PCH do you not like? Whatever the PCH doesn't have IVB-E/SB-E have more than enough PCI-E lanes to let you add stuff to your machine. This isn't a gimped 1155 CPU with only 20 lanes (16 usable on SB). I don't know about your machine but mine does 16x/8x/8x/8x which gives you a lot of options for expansion if you're not running 3 or 4 video cards, not to mention the 1x slots in between some of them.

I've been thoroughly satisfied with my 3820... and if you're complaining about how X79 only has 2 SATA 6Gb ports, then unless you have more than 2 SSDs, you're complaining about a non-issue and if you have the money to invest in that many SSDs, I'm willing to bet you have the money to invest in a nice controller to handle them as well. At least Intel's SATA 6Gb ports run at a full 6Gbit though.

X79 might be a glorified z68 board, but both the X79 and z68 are glorified ICHs with a couple extra PCI-E lanes just in case. If you took the PCI-E controller out of the IOH on 1366, the IOH wouldn't do a lot, so you might as well make it do what the ICH used to.

So just because X79 doesn't have everything you ever wanted does not mean that it's a bad chipset.

Yeah, but then DMI has to be able to let 6 ports saturate SATA 6Gbit. That's more bandwidth than DMI 2.0 has. PCI-E on the other hand bypasses DMI (unless you're using one of those 8 lanes off the PCH,) so a good controller should perform just as well. I have a Marvell SATA 6Gb controller on my board as well in addition to the X79 ports, but it's a bit underwhelming in performance. I think that has to do with how much PCI-E bandwidth it has though and the fact that it has to go through the PCH first anyways.

Honestly, most users, even those looking at lga2011, don't really need more than what X79 offers, because only SSDs are really going to take advantage of SATA 6Gb. Running more than 2 SSDs is a very specific use case, which I'm sure is a market segment so small that Intel could care less.

AMD on the other hand still has HyperTransport for PCI-E and the NB/SB communication. So there is more bandwidth to be had, so more SATA 6Gbit ports isn't hard to achieve. Honestly, I'm surprised PCI-E hasn't replaced DMI for CPU/PCH communication.

Then like you said, you have the secondary SATA3 controller. I would suspect that they wouldn't be the same size and if they were and you wanted to run RAID-0 on all 4, I would say that you're insane and that you're asking for the RAID to fail prematurely since you've already been using two of them.

It's a disaster waiting to happen, and if you want RAID on more than two SSDs, you're better off with a hardware controller anyways because you want the bandwidth and DMI isn't going to offer it. If I recall correctly z77 isn't better because the PCH still only offers 2x6Gbit ports from what I've read so far and still uses DMI 2.0.

So no matter what Intel-based machine you have, you'd be better off getting a nice hardware controller and at least that way you're going directly to the CPU from PCI-E as opposed to going through the PCH if you want more then 2 6Gbit ports at full speed.

The chipset also has power consumption and TDP constraints. Remember that it has to be passively cooled. Not to say that it's always passively cooled but it's a bad plan to require active cooling for something that shouldn't need it.

Then like you said, you have the secondary SATA3 controller. I would suspect that they wouldn't be the same size and if they were and you wanted to run RAID-0 on all 4, I would say that you're insane and that you're asking for the RAID to fail prematurely since you've already been using two of them.

It's a disaster waiting to happen, and if you want RAID on more than two SSDs, you're better off with a hardware controller anyways because you want the bandwidth and DMI isn't going to offer it. If I recall correctly z77 isn't better because the PCH still only offers 2x6Gbit ports from what I've read so far and still uses DMI 2.0.

So no matter what Intel-based machine you have, you'd be better off getting a nice hardware controller and at least that way you're going directly to the CPU from PCI-E as opposed to going through the PCH if you want more then 2 6Gbit ports at full speed.

The chipset also has power consumption and TDP constraints. Remember that it has to be passively cooled. Not to say that it's always passively cooled but it's a bad plan to require active cooling for something that shouldn't need it.

See I can't go back. I use platters for all real data, only storing OS/apps on the ssd. A second ssd for caching and a few games if necessary. $300 spent over the last 3 years to get 250gb of ssd space.

yeah it's more than platter, but well worth it imo. it's not the boot but the actual operation of the system that makes the difference for me. using windows, doing almost anything, is noticeably faster on my ssd than on a standard 7200rpm platter drive.

You can provide an explanation as to which technological processes should be used to make such components, and provide proof as to the fact that Intel (or anyone else) is capable of producing such chips.

1) Speculation about what technology exists out there is foolish. There have been laboratory tests that show transistors operable at 10 GHz. Lab tests and functional chips are two separate things. If you think you can best Intel so thoroughly then invest money and use a fab to produce sample chips. Not a 100 billion investment, and not as insane as spouting ideas without any facts backing you up.

2) X79 is a disappointment. I base this on two facts. The PCH connectivity has been neutered, and its scale was cut back drastically. To the first point, Intel decided to only insure that 6 SATA ports worked. Some manufacturers used the PCH, and managed to get the full 10 SATA ports working (though these boards were expensive). I know of no better way to describe this than Intel neutering X79 for a release date and cheaper cost.

To the scale cutting, consider what was leaked months before release. 14 SATA, with at least 6 being III (if memory serves), and multiple integrated USB 3.0 ports appeared to be in the X79 wheelhouse. What we got instead was a PCH based off of 3 generation old lithography that required active cooling. I don't know about anyone else, but I wanted a RAID 5 array for data storage considering how much this system was going to cost. I didn't expect to spend more money to have the storage I had on my Core 2 Quad.

3) Performance. You have got to be freaking kidding me. Intel expects people to spend another $500 to upgrade, and they deliver a performance increase between 10 and 20% maximum (I am assuming 6.25% base clock increase, and 10% increase due to smaller lithography and minor improvements). I can't see why anyone would upgrade from SB-e to IB-e unless they needed to burn money. The lack of upgrade from X79 to X89 (or whatever Intel might call an IB-e upgraded PCH) is the last nail in the "is this actually an upgrade?" coffin.

4) Intel is releasing too little too late. IB-e, released at the verge of Haswell, is just giving the high end consumer the finger. I just hope Intel releases IB-e as a soldered component, otherwise IB-e will not sell.